How to Modernize Mainframe Applications

It’s official, mainframes are here to stay. And that's a good thing, considering how much we depend on them to this day. Mainframes are used in almost all industries from finance and banking to government, insurance, and much more. The question now is what to do about those good old-fashioned “dinosaur” apps. XebiaLabs’ Sunil Mavadia, Director of Customer Success, discusses this in an article recently published on DevOps.com. According to him, those apps must be modernized or we all stand at risk of falling behind.

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But how? One thing for sure is that scripting is not the answer. Updating mainframes requires modifications to code, data interfaces and other components across multiple platforms simultaneously. Scripts on the other hand are impossible to audit and lack end-to-end process visibility. Another possibility is to throw away existing applications and start from scratch. This, however, is the least efficient option as the enterprise already has an investment in these applications. From an enterprise standpoint, this leaves only one other option.Building bridges between legacy applications and modern engineering is what Sunil prescribes as the only practical solution as it's the one way to simultaneously “cut risk, cost and complexity, while improving...responsiveness to ever-changing customer needs.” The best part about this is that enterprises are becoming increasingly open to adapting to DevOps because of the clear benefits it provides them. Want to learn more about the role mainframes play today and what's to come? Check out the full article here: Mainstreaming the Mainframe: DevOps, Automation, Unified Deployment